The Internet is a vast and expanding network of networks of computer systems and other devices linked together by various telecommunications media, enabling all of these systems and devices to exchange and share data. The World Wide Web provides a graphical interface for navigating the Internet and so-called Web sites provide information about a myriad of corporations and products, as well as educational, research and entertainment information and services. While the availability of these resources is of great benefit to anyone having access to a personal computer (PC) or other device capable of “surfing” the Web, there are also associated drawbacks.
Many Web sites contain content that is inappropriate for viewing by children. Accordingly, parents are often advised to install some form of Internet filtering software on computer systems that will be used by children to protect those children from exposure to such inappropriate material. In general, whenever a Web site is visited, the filtering software checks to see whether the Web site has been determined to be one that includes inappropriate content and permits or denies display of the Web site accordingly (in some cases, a “prohibited” screen may be displayed if the Web site is one that is blocked).
Parents can configure the filtering software to permit or deny Web sites based on categories such as pornography, hate speech, violence, gambling and others. Companies are continually rating new Web sites and updating databases for Internet filtering software so as to keep up with the proliferation of new sites on the Internet. In some cases, if the filtering software encounters a Web site that does not exist in a database, the filtering software may scan the Web site for inappropriate material, and then either permit or prohibit access to the site based on that determination and update the database accordingly.
In addition to relying on Web site categorization, parents can use “black lists” to designate specific Web sites that they do not wish their children to be exposed to. For example, some parents may not want very young children exposed to news-oriented Web sites, which may include reports of violence but which themselves are not categorized as violence-oriented sites. Likewise, parents can “white list” sites that may fall within a category that would otherwise be blocked. An example might be a specific social networking site that parents deem acceptable even though the broader category of social network sites might be blocked.
The white listing of sites that would otherwise be blocked can lead to problems where Web pages on those sites contain referrers to pages or objects from other sites that are included in categories to be blocked by the filtering software. In such cases, the white listed site may fail to display properly in a user's Web browser. Accordingly, what is needed is a solution to address these issues.